IPL Women - 2023

Introduction

The IPL Women, also called Women’s Premier League (WPL), is organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

Described as a game-changer in women's cricket, IPL Women is off to a fantastic start after a successful auction process. 

The BCCI is the governing body of cricket in India. The first season of the IPL Women will take place in March 2023, six days after the end of the Women’s T20 World Cup and a week before the renowned Indian Premier League. 

Table of Contents

• Details
• History
• Concept
• Specifications
• Schedule
• Interesting Facts
• Conclusion

Details

History

Play

While the Indian Premier League for men’s cricket began in 2008, it was only in February of 2022 that the president of BCCI announced a women’s premier league similar to IPL.

Before this, the Women's T20 Challenge, held in 2018, was the first-ever Twenty20 competition in India for women. Since then, the tournament has occurred thrice (2019, 2020, and 2021).

The IPL Women will replace the Women’s T20 Challenge. It was previously called the Women’s Indian Premier League.

However, the BCCI renamed it the Women's Premier League in January.  So far, the BCCI has planned five Women’s Premier League to happen between 2023 and 2027. 

Concept

The structure of the IPL Women tournament is similar to the men's Indian Premier League. For the first season, there will only be five teams. However, the number of teams will be expanded depending on the season's success. 

The initial matches will be held in a double round-robin format, wherein each team will face all the other teams twice.

The top three teams (who have the maximum points) will compete in the playoffs stage. The total number of matches for this season will be 22. 

Specifications

Teams

Five teams will participate in the Women’s Premier League.

The names are Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, Gujarat Giants, and UP Warriorz.

Here are their respective details:

The players of each team are as follows:

Delhi Capitals: Jemimah Rodrigues, Radha Yadav, Shikha Pandey, Tara Norris, Laura Harris, Jasia Akhter, Minnu Mani, Tania Bhatia, Meg Lanning, Shafali Verma, Poonam Yadav, Jess Jonasson, Sneha Deepthi, Arundhati Reddy, Aparna Mondal, Titash Sadhu, Alice Capsey, Marizanne Kapp

Gujarat Giants: Ashleigh Gardner,  Mansi Joshi, Anabel Sutherland, Deandra Dottin, Sneh Rana, S Meghana, Georgia Wareham, Monica Patel, Tanuja Kanwer, Sushma Verma, Harleen Deol, Hurley Gala, Ashwani Kumari, Shabnam MD, Beth Mooney, Sophia Dunkley

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Smriti Mandhana, Preeti Bose, Sophie Devine, Richa Ghosh, Erin Burns, Disha Kasat, Indrani Roy, Komal Zanzad, Megan Schutt, Shreyanka Patil, Kanika Ahuja, Asha Shobana, Heather Knight, Elysse Perry, Renuka Singh, Dane van Niekerk, Poonam Khemnar, Sahana Pawar

Mumbai Indians: Nat Sciver-Brunt, Amelia Kerr, Jintamani Kalita, Pooja Vastrakar, Issy Wong, Amanjot Kaur, Dhara Gujjar, Yastika Bhatia, Heather Graham, Saika Ishaque, Harmanpreet Kaur, Hayley Matthews, Chloe Tryon, Priyanka Bala, Sonam Yadav, Neelam Bisht, Humaira Kazi

UP Warriorz: Sophie Ecclestone, Shabnim Ismail, D. Hemalatha, Lauren Bell, Alyssa Healy, Anjali Sarwani, Parshavi Chopra, Shweta Sehrawat, S Yashasri, Deepti Sharma, Tahlia McGrath, Kiran Navgire, Grace Harris, Devika Vaidya, Lakshmi Yadav, Simran Shaikh, Rajeshwari Gayakwad

Number of Matches

This season will have 5 participating teams. A total of 22 matches will be played in Mumbai.

Date

The tournament will begin on 4 March 2023. The final match will happen on 26 March 2023. 

Format

The first 20 matches will happen in a double round-robin format, and the last 2 will be playoffs. 

Auction process for Women Premier League 2023

BCCI laid out some rules for player selection for each team. A team cannot have more than 18 players, and only 5 players can be overseas players.

All teams will get ₹12 crores to buy their players. This amount will increase by ₹1.5  every year. Here is a detail of the winning bids. 

Schedule

The Women’s Premier League will happen between 4 March 2023 to 26 March 2023. 

All the matches will be held at DY Patil Stadium and Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai. IPL Women 2023 tickets are not yet available.

However, since the matches are beginning in March, the official information should be available soon.

You can watch the live matches on the Sports 18 channel and JioCinema app. 

Here is the complete schedule of the Women's Premier League. 

Interesting Facts

Despite its short existence, IPL Women has had tons of exciting moments. Here are some of the most interesting facts about the upcoming championship. 

• The IPL Women is being called a landmark moment for women’s cricket by the media. India is well-known for its cricket enthusiasm. However, women’s cricket has seen a slow development. Everyone expects the Women's Premier League to take women's cricket forward by leaps and bounds.
• Investors spent an astronomical amount of ₹4,669 crore to purchase the initial franchise rights of IPL Women.
• Owners of Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, and Royal Challengers also bought the women’s team for Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore, respectively. Apart from them, the Adani Group bought the Gujarat Giants, and the Capri Group bought the UP Warriorz team. 
• Viacom 18 bought the IPL Women’s media rights for ₹951 crores, putting per match value at a whopping ₹7.09 crore. 
• Smriti Mandhana was the most expensive player purchased during the auction, with an amount of ₹3.4 crore by Royal Challengers Bangalore. 
• The most expensive overseas player purchase was Ashleigh Gardener for an amount of ₹3.2 crore by Gujarat Giants. 
• Mithali Raj and Sania Mirza have joined Gujarat Giants and Royal Challengers Bangalore as the teams' mentors, respectively. 

Conclusion 

The BCCI is slowly catching up with Australia and England in promoting women’s cricket in India. 

The vast amount spent on media rights and bidding prices in the Women's Premier League has surpassed everyone’s expectations. It is a testament that the BCCI has exerted all efforts to make WPL a hit. 

As Aristotle said, “well-begun is half done." It is fair to say that with this phenomenal beginning, IPL Women will take women’s cricket in India to new heights. And much like the men’s IPL, it will be blockbuster entertaining.